Blog Critic reviews my friends at Scienceblogs

Blog critic, ggwfung, an anonymous blogger and critic with his own blog, Ideas Man, has written an article at Blogcritics titled ScienceBlogs Network Reviewed – the A’s. In it, he gives an apparent thumbs up for the only two anthropology blogs at Scienceblogs, but doesn’t seem so enthused about three of my other favorites there. Indeed, I just realized that its the blogs that start with “A” at Scienceblogs that I like the most!

Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist’s new blog (he’s formerly of Salto Sobrius), gets a “well done” and is described by ggwfung as “crisp” and “clean” in style. And, according to the anonymous critic, should he be reduced to a single word for Martin’s blog it would be “robust.” I can’t argue with him there -Martin does a good job.

ggwfung also liked afarensis, giving him a “seven out of ten” score and commenting favorably on afarensis’ style and content. Perhaps ggwfung finds a natural appeal to bloggers that don’t capitalize their nom de blog, or perhaps he has an affinity for anthropology/archaeology bloggers. Either way, he didn’t pull the punches on the rest of the “A”‘s.

Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock, one of my all-time favorite blogs, is accused of “spinning around in dizzy circles.” His implication that Coturnix posts at a fantastic rate is fair, but I strongly disagree with his assessment that Coturnix’s posts are “haphazard and trivial.” If this *is* the case, then haphazard and trivial are what his readers want -his appears to be one of the more visited and commented blogs at Seed. 1200+ visits per day is not a figure to sneeze at. ggwfung gave Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science “a low rating” and, to Tara at Aetiology, he gave “[a]n ambivalent rating” (whatever that means). His criticisms of these women included their tendency to blog about their personal lives and to engage in chit-chat. Both Janet and Tara are fine bloggers and, while I seldom post at either, I visit them regularly. I enjoy reading about their personal lives and the lighter posts that are intermixed with scientific ones. And its clear that ggwfung didn’t bother to click the tags of “Ethical Research“, “Professional Ethics“, “AIDS/HIV“, or “Infectious Disease” at either of these fine blogs. For, if he had, he would have been presented with some of the very best writing available on blogs or other popular media in these subjects. And, being presented with such glaringly fine examples of what good science blogging is about, ggwfung would never have been able to write critiques that were so far off the mark and still be considered intellectually honest. Instead, it looks as though ggwfung, the “Ideas Man,” visited the blogs of scientists-slash-parents in the post-holiday season and based his critiques from there.

Next time, look a little deeper, “Ideas Man.”